The items were found 30 years ago in Guitarrero Cave high in the Andes Mountains. Other artefacts found along with the textiles had been dated to 12,000 ago and even older. However, the textiles themselves had never been dated, and whether they too were that old had been controversial, according to Edward Jolie, an archaeologist at Mercyhurst College (PA) who led this latest research.

Guitarrero Cave is located in the intermontane Callejo´n de Huaylas Valley (2,500–4,000 m) in the north-central highlands of Peru. Situated at an elevation of 2,580 m, excavations defined two early cultural complexes. The earliest, Complex I, is characterized by flakes, scrapers, a tanged triangular-bladed projectile point, and the remains of deer and small game including rodents, rabbits, and birds. The overlying Complex II yielded the same and additional species of animals. Cultural materials include triangular, lanceolate, and other contracting-stem projectile points and artefacts made of wood, bone, and plant fibre.

The Guitarrero people of 10,000 and more years ago can be regarded as the probably ancestors of the Chavin culture that flourished in northern Peru between 2,900 and 2,200 years before the present. The Chavin culture is one of the forerunners of the later Inca civilization.

The site cave is especially important for the evidence it contains of the very earliest cultivated plants in South America, perhaps even of the earliest maize:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 13, 2011) — Textiles and rope fragments found in a Peruvian cave have been dated to around 12,000 years ago, making them the oldest textiles ever found in South America, according to a report in the April issue of Current Anthropology.---The items were found 30 years ago in Guitarrero Cave high in the Andes Mountains. Other artifacts found along with the textiles had been dated to 12,000 ago and even older. However, the textiles themselves had never been dated, and whether they too were that old had been controversial, according to Edward Jolie, an archaeologist at Mercyhurst College (PA) who led this latest research.

One of the continent’s oldest and most controversial archaeological excavations will be opened to volunteers this spring.

The series of expeditions, to be held April 30 through June 2, will be led by University of South Carolina archaeologist Albert Goodyear, whose discoveries at the Topper site in Allendale County have captured international attention and stimulated new debate over when humans first arrived in North America.

Goodyear’s search for a pre-Clovis culture — ice age man in South Carolina — began in Allendale County in 1998 when artifacts dug from the banks of the Savannah River were dated back 16,000 years — about 2,500 years earlier than when man was thought to have appeared on the continent.:

Deeper excavations yielded even more primitive artifacts radiocarbon-dated to be 50,000 years old, which placed humans in North America long before the last ice age. The extreme age of the earliest artifacts has been controversial, and work is under way now to verify those ages with new diagnostic techniques.

“We are attempting to redate the site to resolve the apparent great age of it, but that will be months before we know anything,” Goodyear said. “We are working with a geologist who does paleomagnetism searching for a deviation in the earth’s magnetic field that happened 40,000 years ago. If he can detect that, it will show that the site at least that old and younger.”

Excavations at the site, meanwhile, will continue this spring and summer, with opportunities for volunteers to dig alongside archaeologists and learn about studies of early man.

The skeleton, which is probably at least 10,000 years old, has disappeared from a cenote, or underground water reservoir, in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula.

The missing bones belong to a skeleton dubbed Young Man of Chan Hol II, discovered in 2010. The cenote in which it was found had previously yielded another 10,000-year-old skeleton – the Young Man of Chan Hol, discovered in 2006.

The earlier find has anatomical features suggesting shared heritage with Indonesians and south Asians. Other skeletons found in cenotes in the area with similar features may date to around 14,000 years ago. Such finds imply that not all early Americans came from north Asia. This deals yet another blow to the idea that the Clovis people crossing an ancient land bridge between Siberia and Alaska were the first to colonise the Americas. Clovis culture dates to around 13,000 years ago.